12 ms·

N26 is also very successful in France, whose banking industry is--I can confirm--very much slow, difficult, and _very_ manually run. They can charge fees for ac

by _n_b_ 7y ago

N26 is also very successful in France, whose banking industry is--I can confirm--very much slow, difficult, and _very_ manually run. They can charge fees for accounts because their fees are still so much lower than the incumbents they're displacing. (And you can do stuff without having to talk to your bank counsellor, at your one specific branch, in person... how novel!) So I can see how their model wouldn't be very good, or very disruptive, in places with more consumer-friendly banking options.

danpalmer 7y ago
Exactly. I can fully understand how they might be a paradigm shift from that sort of banking ecosystem. For us it was just a bank that lacked features and had charges, without a memorable brand.
davidw 7y ago
> at your one specific branch, Italy is the same way and it is awful. We signed up for our bank account at one specific branch of a bank in Padova, Italy, and it's impossible to do much besides withdraw some cash at other branches. It's so dumb.
- qubex 7y ago
  As an Italian, I understand this... but the obvious question is: why didn’t you open it at a branch more convenient for you?
  - davidw 7y ago
    We lived in one place, then moved. We got our mortgage via the one close to us prior to the move. Now we live in the US and it doesn't matter so much as trying to do anything with the bank from here is pretty much impossible. We had asked about having everything moved over to the branch closer to our home, but apparently the logistical requirements are close to those for sending a manned mission to the moon.
    - jaclaz 7y ago
      I can tell you that, in Italy, there is not a "standard", in the sense that not all banks are the same, and often one that excels in something is terrible in another aspect. With home-banking these differences are even more marked, some sites have "reasonable" possibilities offered to the customer, some other have next to none (besides checking your account) some have relatively simple workflows some other are so stupidly complex that you give up. More or less all of them (the sites) have an inane amount of meaningless dashboard/graphics, and very poor tools (as an example to download some data). However, when it comes to "serious" matters things are seemingly "random" in the way they change from bank to bank, personal anecdata, a few years ago when an old relative died, to access the accounts it took the heirs (with exactly the SAME documentation): Bank #1: 3 days <- exceptionally fast Bank #2: 10 days <- I would say "appropriate" or "logical" Bank #3: 7 months (or 210 days) <- completely "crazy"
      - davidw 7y ago
        Be curious to hear the banks' names.
        jaclaz 7y ago
        >Be curious to hear the banks' names. Ow, come on, you know the saying: [Italian] Si dice il peccato e non il peccatore. [/Italian] More seriously, as said that is single point anecdata, it is perfectly possible that today a similar test would give completely different results.
        davidw 7y ago
        They're banks; large corporations. It's not like anyone's naming an employee there or something. And I do understand that things vary. One time, for instance, I even had a package arrive quickly through Poste Italiane.
      - oAlbe 7y ago
        In Italy there's also the problem that most banks don't allow you to receive wire transfers from outside the SEPA area. I had a hard time finding a bank that would allow me to receive transfers from the US. Some of them were actually baffled when I called for information at the idea of someone wanting to receive money from oversea. And let's not even get into keeping an account in another currency. My bank apparently never had to do anything of the sorts, and after digging for information they told me it would cost about 400€ per year just keep the account open.
  - TulliusCicero 7y ago
    Do people not move in Italy or something? I've encountered the same thing in Germany, when I log in I use the branch number of where we opened the account? Why? Who gives a shit about that? I certainly don't. But the bank does, for some unfathomable reason. For each way German banks are better than American ones, it seems like there's a way in which they're backwards or overly conservative.
    - qubex 7y ago
      Not very much, no... we call it ’campanilismo’: the tendency for people to live out their lives within earshot of their town’s church’s bell-tower (campanile). Side-story: southern Italians who relocated to the industrialising North during the ‘Italian Economic Miracle’ of the 1950s to 1970s referred to the process as ‘emigrating’. Until it was looked down upon by more modern sensitivities, they were referred to as ‘immigrants’, and their offspring referred to as first- and second-generation immigrants. It really is a rather static society, though now there’s a significant and constant flow of young graduates from the hideously unemployment-afflicted South towards the North, or abroad since the Great Stagnation set in about fifteen years ago.
    - Hamuko 7y ago
      In Finland, the biggest bank is actually just a group of local banks. So if I sign up for a bank account up north, I am the customer of the bank way up there, which is a separate legal entity from the bank down in the south. Of course, if you do move and you want to apply for a new credit card, they will mail the card and paper work to any of the locations, so it's not that bad. And all of the banks in the group have an unified online banking system, no branch numbers needed. However, when I switched between the different banks, I had to get new login details for the online bank, which was kinda sucky.
    - Scoundreller 7y ago
      > when I log in I use the branch number of where we opened the account? Why? Who gives a shit about that? I certainly don't. But the bank does, for some unfathomable reason. In the US and Canada, you’ll have a home branch too. Usually it doesn’t come up in anything day-to-day. State laws for one thing may apply to accounts opened in a particular state. But if a bank merges or gets acquired, or fails, and some branches get sold/divested, and not necessarily to one party. One could find themselves a customer of a bank that is no longer local to them. Here’s a merger that had a divesture: https://www.bauerfinancial.com/2019/12/09/its-truist-theres-a-new-era-in-big-banking/ https://www.bauerfinancial.com/2019/12/09/its-truist-theres-...
  - briandear 7y ago
    What’s the point of branches? It isn’t like computers aren’t a thing.
Glawen 7y ago
French banks are slow, but they provide good services. When i lived in the UK, i had only a debit card (maestro). If you wanted a mastercard you needed a credit card account where you needed to manually balance at the end of the month. Mind you this was 10 years ago, when the UK was Just introducing PIN code for every card transaction, a security feature found in France since the 90s. In France you get mastercard as debit card or credit card bound to your current account.
- wjoe 7y ago
  This is pretty standard in the UK these days, most debit cards are Visa/Mastercard - 10 years ago most debit cards were Maestro or Visa Electron, although I still didn't have much difficulty getting a Visa debit card for travelling. I found it very odd when I was in Germany that this wasn't the case, Visa/Mastercard were entirely considered credit cards, and debit cards used some entirely different system. I couldn't use my debit card to pay for a Berlin subway ticket, as the machines only took German bank cards.
  - _-___________-_ 7y ago
    > debit cards used some entirely different system Maestro is pretty common, but there's also something called EC-card or similar. However, the Berlin subway machines now take visa/mc too.
  - laurencerowe 7y ago
    UK debit cards used to be either Switch/Maestro or Visa Delta/Visa Debit depending on who you banked with. The Switch/Maestro cards were then phased out around 10 years ago and replaced with either Visa Debit or Debit Mastercard. I used to travel frequently to Germany at the time so it was super annoying not to be able to use my card anywhere but a cash machine. Visa Electron was in a different category with Switch Solo. I think they tended to be issued on accounts with no overdraft facility. (I had a Solo card as a teenager and it was only accepted at a handful of places.) I remember being really annoyed when my
- briandear 7y ago
benhurmarcel 7y ago
France has had good online banks for years now, with free accounts/cards/transfers and everything managed online. You just have to choose your bank carefully. Boursorama or Fortuneo are typical decent examples.

by _n_b_ 7y ago

danpalmer 7y ago

Exactly. I can fully understand how they might be a paradigm shift from that sort of banking ecosystem. For us it was just a bank that lacked features and had charges, without a memorable brand.

davidw 7y ago

> at your one specific branch, Italy is the same way and it is awful. We signed up for our bank account at one specific branch of a bank in Padova, Italy, and it's impossible to do much besides withdraw some cash at other branches. It's so dumb.

qubex 7y ago
As an Italian, I understand this... but the obvious question is: why didn’t you open it at a branch more convenient for you?
- davidw 7y ago
  We lived in one place, then moved. We got our mortgage via the one close to us prior to the move. Now we live in the US and it doesn't matter so much as trying to do anything with the bank from here is pretty much impossible. We had asked about having everything moved over to the branch closer to our home, but apparently the logistical requirements are close to those for sending a manned mission to the moon.
  - jaclaz 7y ago
    I can tell you that, in Italy, there is not a "standard", in the sense that not all banks are the same, and often one that excels in something is terrible in another aspect. With home-banking these differences are even more marked, some sites have "reasonable" possibilities offered to the customer, some other have next to none (besides checking your account) some have relatively simple workflows some other are so stupidly complex that you give up. More or less all of them (the sites) have an inane amount of meaningless dashboard/graphics, and very poor tools (as an example to download some data). However, when it comes to "serious" matters things are seemingly "random" in the way they change from bank to bank, personal anecdata, a few years ago when an old relative died, to access the accounts it took the heirs (with exactly the SAME documentation): Bank #1: 3 days <- exceptionally fast Bank #2: 10 days <- I would say "appropriate" or "logical" Bank #3: 7 months (or 210 days) <- completely "crazy"
    - davidw 7y ago
      Be curious to hear the banks' names.
      - jaclaz 7y ago
        >Be curious to hear the banks' names. Ow, come on, you know the saying: [Italian] Si dice il peccato e non il peccatore. [/Italian] More seriously, as said that is single point anecdata, it is perfectly possible that today a similar test would give completely different results.
        davidw 7y ago
        They're banks; large corporations. It's not like anyone's naming an employee there or something. And I do understand that things vary. One time, for instance, I even had a package arrive quickly through Poste Italiane.
    - oAlbe 7y ago
      In Italy there's also the problem that most banks don't allow you to receive wire transfers from outside the SEPA area. I had a hard time finding a bank that would allow me to receive transfers from the US. Some of them were actually baffled when I called for information at the idea of someone wanting to receive money from oversea. And let's not even get into keeping an account in another currency. My bank apparently never had to do anything of the sorts, and after digging for information they told me it would cost about 400€ per year just keep the account open.
- TulliusCicero 7y ago
  Do people not move in Italy or something? I've encountered the same thing in Germany, when I log in I use the branch number of where we opened the account? Why? Who gives a shit about that? I certainly don't. But the bank does, for some unfathomable reason. For each way German banks are better than American ones, it seems like there's a way in which they're backwards or overly conservative.
  - qubex 7y ago
    Not very much, no... we call it ’campanilismo’: the tendency for people to live out their lives within earshot of their town’s church’s bell-tower (campanile). Side-story: southern Italians who relocated to the industrialising North during the ‘Italian Economic Miracle’ of the 1950s to 1970s referred to the process as ‘emigrating’. Until it was looked down upon by more modern sensitivities, they were referred to as ‘immigrants’, and their offspring referred to as first- and second-generation immigrants. It really is a rather static society, though now there’s a significant and constant flow of young graduates from the hideously unemployment-afflicted South towards the North, or abroad since the Great Stagnation set in about fifteen years ago.
  - Hamuko 7y ago
    In Finland, the biggest bank is actually just a group of local banks. So if I sign up for a bank account up north, I am the customer of the bank way up there, which is a separate legal entity from the bank down in the south. Of course, if you do move and you want to apply for a new credit card, they will mail the card and paper work to any of the locations, so it's not that bad. And all of the banks in the group have an unified online banking system, no branch numbers needed. However, when I switched between the different banks, I had to get new login details for the online bank, which was kinda sucky.
  - Scoundreller 7y ago
    > when I log in I use the branch number of where we opened the account? Why? Who gives a shit about that? I certainly don't. But the bank does, for some unfathomable reason. In the US and Canada, you’ll have a home branch too. Usually it doesn’t come up in anything day-to-day. State laws for one thing may apply to accounts opened in a particular state. But if a bank merges or gets acquired, or fails, and some branches get sold/divested, and not necessarily to one party. One could find themselves a customer of a bank that is no longer local to them. Here’s a merger that had a divesture: https://www.bauerfinancial.com/2019/12/09/its-truist-theres-a-new-era-in-big-banking/ https://www.bauerfinancial.com/2019/12/09/its-truist-theres-...
- briandear 7y ago
  What’s the point of branches? It isn’t like computers aren’t a thing.

Glawen 7y ago

French banks are slow, but they provide good services. When i lived in the UK, i had only a debit card (maestro). If you wanted a mastercard you needed a credit card account where you needed to manually balance at the end of the month. Mind you this was 10 years ago, when the UK was Just introducing PIN code for every card transaction, a security feature found in France since the 90s. In France you get mastercard as debit card or credit card bound to your current account.

wjoe 7y ago
This is pretty standard in the UK these days, most debit cards are Visa/Mastercard - 10 years ago most debit cards were Maestro or Visa Electron, although I still didn't have much difficulty getting a Visa debit card for travelling. I found it very odd when I was in Germany that this wasn't the case, Visa/Mastercard were entirely considered credit cards, and debit cards used some entirely different system. I couldn't use my debit card to pay for a Berlin subway ticket, as the machines only took German bank cards.
- _-___________-_ 7y ago
  > debit cards used some entirely different system Maestro is pretty common, but there's also something called EC-card or similar. However, the Berlin subway machines now take visa/mc too.
- laurencerowe 7y ago
  UK debit cards used to be either Switch/Maestro or Visa Delta/Visa Debit depending on who you banked with. The Switch/Maestro cards were then phased out around 10 years ago and replaced with either Visa Debit or Debit Mastercard. I used to travel frequently to Germany at the time so it was super annoying not to be able to use my card anywhere but a cash machine. Visa Electron was in a different category with Switch Solo. I think they tended to be issued on accounts with no overdraft facility. (I had a Solo card as a teenager and it was only accepted at a handful of places.) I remember being really annoyed when my
briandear 7y ago

benhurmarcel 7y ago

France has had good online banks for years now, with free accounts/cards/transfers and everything managed online. You just have to choose your bank carefully. Boursorama or Fortuneo are typical decent examples.